Rhythm of Four
by Ash to Dust
Summary: For just a moment, a heartbeat, we forgot. For a moment as long as the heartbeat of a Time Lord. One, two, three, four. New chapter because it didn't feel finished.
1. DoctorMaster

Character Study - End of Time

Doctor/Master (friendship only)

***

For a moment it was as though we had never become enemies.

For just a moment, a heartbeat, we forgot.

For a moment as long as the heartbeat of a Time Lord.

One, two, three, four.

The drumbeat.

One, two, three, four.

Four beats and the spaces between.

Five words.

"Get out of the way."

Instinct took over, instinct of years of friendship; of knowing we could never kill each other.

Instinct telling me what was about to happen.

So without question I jumped aside.

I lay there as my friend stood up against Rassilon himself.

My friend. My other half. The other side of my coin.

Heads and tails.

I knew then I couldn't let him die. I had to do this alone, to take down the drumbeat. To save him one more time.

One, two, three, four.

It was all the motivation I needed. He stood there, staring defiantly at the man that had taken everything from him, from us. The man that had brought the drumbeat between us.

"Get out of the way."

It was not a command or a request. It was instinct, the instinct to survive, to fight.

And for the first time it wasn't about the drums. It was about him.

And he knew.

He had listened.

Just like old times.

And I watched as he embraced that fact and jumped out of the way.

"You did this to me!"

To us, you destroyed us.

One, two, three, four.

I didn't look back to see his face, the horror, the fear, the pride.

I'd done it.

But I couldn't bear to look back at the man that had saved me. It had taken me so long to understand that he respected me and always had. No matter what I had done he had been ready to forgive me, just like that.

_I'd be honoured._

And he'd meant every word.

I wanted it. I wanted to turn and go back to him, to beg for forgiveness, to become the man I had once been. To save him from what I knew was coming. The link wasn't the prophecy, I wasn't the man.

Because when it came down to it, there was always someone that mattered more than me.

So I didn't stop.

One, two, three, four.

Until the drums stopped.

I saw the Time War. I saw the horror that he had endured. I wasn't afraid when they dragged me away from Rassilon, I wasn't afraid when I saw Gallifrey burning. I was sorry.

So many things changed in that moment.

I knew why he had destroyed our home. I would have done the same thing in his shoes.

I was sorry for what I'd done in the year that never was.

I was sorry for what I'd done to him.

Above me I saw a flash of blue, a box flying into space.

I could think only one thing as I came face to face with death.

Four words.

I'm sorry, good luck.

And the four I never had time for.

Thank you my Theta.


	2. DoctorFate

Character Study

Doctor/Fate

***

I was alive.

It was all over.

The Earth was safe, my friends were safe, those I had left behind, or had stayed behind were safe. When it came down to it that was all that mattered. The people that kept me going were alive. I could move on and find new people to keep me from my lonliness.

Fate had been wrong.

That shouldn't happen, no one can cheat fate. Not even me.

Surely this was it? Surely I had done the impossible once again. The last Time Lord once more.

Alone, my curse, my lonliness.

I could hear my hearts pounding their steady, rapid rhythm in my ear.

One, two, three, four.

Then I heard it and everything came crashing down. I understood that he had known, he hadn't looked back because he couldn't bear too. He had known what was coming, he had known that he couldn't save me.

The prophecy was completed by the one person who had never killed. The one who had been too scared and shocked to fire the gun. The man that had left the world on my shoulders.

He didn't know what he was doing.

The last few minutes suddenly irrelevant because I should have known that I couldn't escape fate.

Someone knocking on the glass.

Someone wanting freedom.

Someone sealing my fate.

I should have known. I can't escape fate. She knew when she cried for me. She knew when she told me what to do. She had known it would be the last time she saw her son.

Because whether I liked it or not, the human race always came before them.

It hadn't been the link.

It hadn't been the Master warning me away in the scrapyards of London.

Knocking on the glass.

"It's not fair."

One, two, three, four.


	3. DoctorWilf

Character Study

Doctor/Wilf

***

"Who are you?"

"I'm Wilfred Mott."

I had said it then. There had been something linking us together for years. I understood now. This had to happen, there was no other way. I had lost everything again, I had lost my mother, I had lost the Master and I had lost Gallifrey.

What for?

The human race.

The ones destined to survive to the end of the universe, never giving in. I wanted to be more like them because whether I liked it or not I had never been Gallifreyan, my own heritage had decided that.

The half-human freak, the Doctor, the oncoming storm.

The only one who had been able to do it, the only one Romana had trusted enough.

The only one who could possibly give themselves up for Wilfred Mott.

He deserved to live far more than I did. He had to see his grand-daughter marry, to grow old with his family.

The one adventure I can never have again. I lost my family when I left, so long ago, apart from Susan but I haven't talked to her for centuries. For some reason that feels like an even bigger loss, drifting away without the finality of death.

"Lived too long."

I was young compared to many Time Lords, I hadn't even reached a thousand yet. But a thousand had never felt further away, it felt too far away. Nine hundred year already felt like too much. I envied Wilfred as he stood there against the glass, begging for me not to do it, not to give up my life for him. He was old, he wasn't going to live for much longer, yet he was over eight hundred years my junior.

It hurt to think that I was going to loose him to.

"Wilfred, it's my honour."

Don't waste this chance. Live your life.

"Better be quick,"

You're life gone in the blink of an eye, speeding past never stopping. That's my life and I'm not sure I can live with it any longer.

"Three, two one."

I can't bear starting on four, the thing that started all this.

Pain.

Suddenly I'm not old at all. You sense it too, looking at me and seeing a lost boy. My eyes lock with yours and the pain is shared. You see a lost boy crying out wordlessly for relief that's not going to come.

I'm crying.

It's doesn't feel wrong anymore.

Then the pain stops and the tingling begins. I hold it back, feeling it healing the tiny cuts that litter my body.

This is it, it's the end.

One, two, three, four.


End file.
